Fighting Gravity
by Lass of the Lake
Summary: "You see, what you're doing is about as logical as fighting gravity with a weight on your shoulders." Fred didn't know her, but she was there to help.


**A/N: This is set in the fifth book - a.k.a Fred and George's seventh year - when Fred finds out Angelina is not in love with him, but with his twin.**

**Disclaimer: I do not own anything. J.K. Rowling owns all.**

_Fighting Gravity_

_"You see, what you're doing is about as logical as fighting gravity with a weight on your shoulders."_

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><p>Fred Weasley didn't remember ever feeling so depressed. Not in his life-time. He was making up for it now, though. He felt like drowning himself, or something like that. It was the most awful feeling. So he sat at the bar at the Three Broomsticks, drinking a pint and drowning his sorrows as the firewhiskey set itself to work. He sighed heavily, swilling the whiskey around in the glass and watching it with sad brown eyes. His throat burned with the remains of the whiskey, but not as bad as his eyes did with the urge to cry.<p>

Because she had left him. Because she was in love with his twin.

Because there was nothing he could do about it.

Fred finished off the glass and called for Rosmerta to get him a refill. She gave him an odd look, obviously wondering why he was so melancholy, but she didn't question him. The keeper of the pub merely picked up his glass and took it to where all the other hard liquor was kept. She refilled the glass and brought it back to the depressed Weasley, which he took with a half-hearted smile and swallowed another mouthful to numb him again.

Before Rosmerta could depart to help another customer, someone sat down at Fred's side, though he sat at the bar and there were plenty of open seats all around the room. "One butter beer, please," a melodic voice ordered, and Fred slowly turned to see who was joining his lonesome. His vision swirled a little bit, but he was able to make out the young girl at his side who was pulling her blue and silver scarf from around her neck. A Ravenclaw. Her hair was long and black, coming to braid around the crown of her head and her eyes were an almost scary shade of blue. She looked sort of familar, but Fred couldn't place her. "Looking lovely as ever, Miss Rose," the girl complimented with a genuine smile.

Rosmerta actually blushed and waved off the girl with a kind of motherly affection. "Oh, Sparrow, you are too kind." The woman turned toward one of the ice chests kept behind the bar and pulled out a chilled butter beer and poured the bottle into a fancy glass. "Here you go, dear."

_Sparrow,_ Fred thought, _now that's a name I know._

The girl downed some of the drink, setting the little glass back down in front of her and turned to look at him. Her big blue orbs stood out against her pale skin and dark hair and seemed to go right through him, right to his soul. He was so mesmorized by her eyes that he nearly missed it when she spoke. "You're Fred Weasley, right?" she asked.

"Yes," he said slowly, his thinking already beginning to be hindered by the firewhiskey that seared in his stomach. He was also confused. He knew her name - he'd definitely heard it before - and she obviously knew who he was. "I am."

The raven haired beauty next to him laughed a little, probably at how confused he looked. The laughter forced her eyes shut and Fred found himself thinking a bit clearer. He remembered seeing those eyes before, too, but where? Her laughter subsided and she held out a hand for him to shake. He took it, dazed by her. "I'm Sparrow Morgan."

Sparrow Morgan.

Now he knew who she was - no doubt about it. She was the seeker for the Ravenclaw quidditch team. She was a quick little thing too. She almost caught the snitch before Harry last time, and would have if it weren't for the bludger that hit her on the side of the head, accidental curtesy of her own teammate. He remembered for days after the match, several were worried that she had sustained serious injury that would keep her from playing the rest of the season. However, the next game he attended - as a spectator, since it was Ravenclaw vs. Slytherin - she was back on her broom and caught the snitch with a smoothe ease, like she had been built for it.

He'd never gotten a good look at her before. The closest he'd ever been was when she and Cedric Diggory had swooped right over the crowd back in his fifth year and her boot had been literally an inch away from smacking him in the face. It was no wonder he didn't recognize her right off. And besides that, no one called her Sparrow in school. He'd only ever heard her be called Sparrow a couple times on the quidditch pitch and once when she was being sorted.

Almost everyone called her Morgan.

"Oh," Fred said, releasing her hand, realizing he'd been holding it the whole time he'd been thinking. He grabbed his cup and took another swig to occupy himself. "It's nice to meet you, Sparrow," he said with uncertainty, not sure if she even liked to be called by her first name.

"It's nice to meet you too, Fred," she said with a nod, and he relaxed a little bit. He didn't remember ever feeling so tense whenever he drank. He figured it must be the depression and her presence. She continued to pull the extra layers from her body, but when she pulled off her gloves, his attention was drawn to them. There, written on the top of her hand in neat curling script were the words, _"I will not disrespect authority,"_ and the cuts made were deep and fresh.

Without even realizing it, he reached out for her hand and took it in his, looking at the deep indentions. "How many times did she make you write it?" he asked disbelievingly. It was way deeper than his own cuts and he'd had to write it over and over again, amouting to a hundred times.

Sparrow stayed silent and when he looked up at her, she had the slightest smile on her face. "I'll tell you how many times I had to write it and exactly why I had to write it if you promise to tell me why you're so depressed."

Fred nodded his head, vaguely wondering why she was interested in why he was sad. His world swirled when he sat all the way up, and he had to blink away the distortions done to his sight. He was obviously starting to get drunk - and not the kind that would be fun - so he pushed the glass away, having had enough, especially since he had a feeling he'd want to remember this later.

Sparrow absently traced the words slowly on her hand, backwards and forwards. The smile on her features didn't falter. "We were in Defense Against the Dark Arts class, if you can even even call it that anymore. Might as well be called theories behind defensive spells, entry level." That almost made Fred laugh. "And she called me Ms. Sparrow, so of course, I told her that my first name was Sparrow and that my last name was Morgan. She then proceeded to tell me that I was being ridiculous and that no parent in their right mind would give their child the first name Sparrow." Fred rolled his eyes. He knew that that little woman was a bitch. "I told her no parent within their right mind would want to claim someone as awful as her as their child."

Fred's jaw dropped.

And then he couldn't fight it anymore. He burst into laughter than shook his whole body and she joined in. Her giggles were high and melodic while his was low and booming, creating a two part harmony in their laughter. Hers died down first and his followed, watching her intently.

"She called me a brat, banned me from quidditch and sentenced me to two and half weeks of dentention with her." Sparrow brought her hand up to her face to examine. "This is the product of two and a half days of dentention. I got out of it because she made me write with that damn quill so long the words, 'I will not disrespect authority,' were starting etch their way onto my bones."

Fred balked. Onto her bones? She must have bled really heavily for it to get that far. Usually Umbridge stopped them as soon as blood started to run down their hands in streams, knowing her means of punishment weren't technically legal and she wasn't completely in charge of the school yet.

"You're turn," Sparrow reminded him, pulling him from his thoughts.

He nodded, trying to get the image of blood spilling down her pale hands out of his head and straighten out his thoughts which were becoming more and more bleary by the second. "Well, you see, there's this girl that I've liked for a really long time and we'd been dating for a while when she just broke it off earlier this year. When I asked her why, she said she was confused and I accepted it, thinking we'd get back together when she was ready." Fred stopped to take a deep breath, peeking at the girl across from him. "Today I found out she broke up with me because she is in love with my twin."

Sparrow stayed silent, looking at him while he avoided her gaze. She shifted, resting her elbow on the surface of the bar and her chin on the back of her hand. "Was she beautiful?" Sparrow asked.

"The most beautiful I've ever seen."

The raven haired girl nodded thoughtfully, tucking a black lock behind her ear. Fred could nearly see the thoughts flitting through her cobalt eyes as she shifted through them far faster than he could in his inebriated state. She looked every bit a Ravenclaw, but when she spoke, she had cunning and power too. Suddenly, she looked up from where she'd been staring, eyes an eerie bright blue. "I know what your problem is."

Fred felt like he'd missed something major as he said, "Mind letting me know what it is?"

Sparrow didn't answer; she merely stood, leaving all the layers she'd taken from her body on the bar, and offered him a hand. "Come with me." Fred gave her a queer look and she gave a little - cute - annoyed huff. "I think my words will have more clarity if I demonstrate my point." She shook her hand impatiently. "So c'mon then!"

Fred took the hand she offered, standing. It was then that he noticed that Sparrow was incredibly short, but she didn't give him time to really think about how tiny she was - she started pulling him as soon as he was on his feet. He didn't know what she was going to do to 'demonstrate her point,' but she had proven to be sensible so far, so he assumed there was a method to her madness. However, he became somewhat nervous when she started leading him towards the door, calling for Rosmerta to have two hot cocoas ready for when they came back in.

Sparrow opened the door and a particularly hard gust of wind hit them as they stepped into the cold. Fred was clad only in a sweater and a long sleave shirt and he was already quite chilled, but the girl to his side had to be even colder with how small she was and how thin that little jacket looked to be.

The moment Fred Weasley started thinking Sparrow Morgan was crazy was when she pulled on his hand to get him to walk further out into the snowy scape. He gave her a bizarre look, but the girl didn't seem to notice or mind; he couldn't really tell. What he could see was that her lips had lost most of there color already and were turning paler by the second as she lost warmth. But she pulled him forward, past a couple shops where other wizards hung about. They recieved weird stares, others obviously curious to their state of dress.

They were about a hundred feet from where the string of shops ended and the path back to Hogwarts began when the girl who was leading him on this bloody mad venture spoke. "Quite cold?" she asked casually, a waver in her own voice from the chill.

"Yes-"

Before he could finish his thought or even question her, she'd turned on him quickly, her hair flying in the icy wind and shoved into his chest. Had he not been caught so off guard, there was no way her force would have managed to bring him down, but she'd had the element of surprise. The redhead fell into a bank of white snow. His form sunk into the pile of flurries before he could stop himself, and when he sat up, he didn't look happy, but the icy cold snow against his hands and face had helped clear his thoughts up. "What the bloody hell is wrong with you?" he demanded heatedly, wiping snow from his face.

Sparrow didn't even look slightly fazed. In fact, she looked rather bored. "Alcohol is a depressant and makes you emotionally unstable. You were drinking to drown your sorrows about a girl - Angelina Johnson, I'd assume - but really, you're just adding to your own misery." She crouched down in front of him. "What just happened is the same. If you were cold, you wouldn't lie down in a pile of snow to fix it, just like adding alcohol to a problem never solves anything." Now Sparrow smiled and offered him a hand. "You see, what you're doing is about as logical as fighting gravity with a weight on your shoulders, and accomplishes just as much. You end up hurt and most likely on your arse."

Fred understood her train of thought, but he still didn't quite understand the girl herself. Here she was having just met him for the first time and it was like she knew just what to say and just how to get through to him. And she definitely knew how to clear his mind.

Fred grabbed the hand she offered, but instead of pulling himself up, he pulled her down next to him. Sparrow shrieked loudly as she fell, making her own indention in the snow pile. Her small form shied away from the cold, wet slush that was starting to melt against her skin and towards the only source of warmth, wiggling into his side and resting her head on his chest.

"That wasn't very nice," she breathed.

Fred only smiled and wrapped an arm around her waist so that when he stood, she was brought to her feet as well. It was only when she looked up at him with a sly smile that he realized her lips had gained a faint blue tint. He let go of her waist and grabbed her hand, running so fast the girl behind him tripped and stumbled trying to keep up. "Fred!" she yelled with laughter, "What are you doing?" She hadn't even realized she was still cold. She wasn't even shaking anymore.

Fred yanked Sparrow back into The Three Broomsticks and shut the door firmly behind him. The whole pub turned to stare at the flushed man and the girl he pulled along behind him. He stopped at the bar and pulled his jacket off of the stood next to where he'd been sitting and wrapped it around the icy-eyed girl. The jacket was huge and bulky on her, but it was more suited to warm her up. He grabbed one of the mugs and held it out for her.

Sparrow took it, but her hands had started shaking now that her body was warming up and registering how cold it was. She almost dropped it, but Fred grabbed it from her hands. Sparrow's crystal eyes looked up at him widely. "This is hypothermia, isn't it?"

Fred nodded, pulling out his wand and lighting what was left of his firewhiskey on fire. He didn't know any spells to warm her up, so it was as best as he could do to lift the glass of hot chocolate to her mouth and keep it from spilling while she took a drink. He didn't understand his concern - he'd just met her, after all - but he knew he was and there was no fighting it off. In the short twenty or so minutes he'd spoken to her, she'd sort of captured his attention and he wanted to get to know her, if nothing else.

Soon Sparrow's lips turned back to a healthy pink color and her skin gained a warm flush, and finally, she stopped shaking enough to hold her own drink. Rosmerta came by, reprimanding Fred for using one of her glasses as a bonfire, and refilled both of their hot chocolates without even being asked.

"You know," Fred started, gazing at his half-empty mug, "I think you were right."

"Of course I was right," Sparrow said smugly. "What was I right about?"

Fred smiled at that. She must be okay if she was already making jokes. "I think you were right about the drinking thing. I've actually felt a lot better since you pushed me into that pile of snow." He smiled over the rim of his glass and she giggled into hers.

Sparrow gave the man beside her a crazy look, but couldn't hide her little smirk. "Me?" she questioned, feigning total and complete innocence, holding a hand up to her chest like she couldn't believe he was insinuating such a thing. "Why, I don't know what you're talking about. I would never push someone in the snow; especially someone who wasn't dressed in the proper layers."

"You think you're really charming, don't you?"

Sparrow winked at him as she finished off her second glass. "Little bit." The young woman shrugged off his jacket and handed it back to him. He took it and watched as she put her own coat back on, pulled on her gloves and wrapped her Ravenclaw colored scarf around her neck. He found himself thinking she looked better in his jacket. "Well, I'm off. Back to the castle. Umbitch might blow a gasket if she found out Professor Flitwick gave me special permission to come out here." The girl reached into her coat pocket and pulled out three sickles, laying it out on the counter, followed by one galleon. "Rumor has it she's thinking of ending all trips to Hogsmeade for anyone without special permission." She snorted. "That definitely leaves me out. So this may be my last... For the time being, anyway."

"Wait," Fred said before he'd even realized what exactly he was saying, catching the girl's attention. Her blue orbs zeroed in on him and where before they'd made him feel uncomfortable, he liked their unique look now. "Let me walk you back."

She smiled, blushed and looked down at the ground. "Okay... If you want to."

"I do."

Fred pulled on his coat and hat, and grabbed enough money to pay for his drinks, laying it out on the counter for Rosmerta to grab when she cleaned up their places. He smiled and gestured for her to go first. They left the pub, side by side just as a fresh sheet snow started to fall. Seeing this, he pulled the hat off his own head and stuck it firmly on hers. "Hey!" she exclaimed laughingly when the rim slipped over her eyes. "What are you doing?"

"I'm not watching you turn blue on me twice," he joked, pulling on his gloves and wrapping his Gryffindor colored scarf around his own neck. "I promise it matches you ensemble."

Sparrow adjusted the hat on her head, noting that it was black, and rolled her eyes. "Fine, but if you turn blue, you have no one to blame but yourself." Fred laughed in response, shoving his hands into his jacket pockets. It really was cold out, but he felt better knowing she was bundled up and well. The two walked in silence until they reached the nearly deserted path that would lead them back to the castle. It was too cold for the carriages to be running, so in order to get down to Hogsmeade, you had to have the resolve to walk.

"So, since you're obviously so anti-Umbridge, I was thinking maybe you'd like to join this group I'm in," Fred started. Actually, he'd been thinking it since she'd called her Umbitch back in the pub, and she seemed to be a better and better candidate by the second. "It's called the DA. It stands for-"

"Dumbledore's Army," Sparrow finished with a smile.

Fred was surprised. He was sure that he'd never seen her at a meeting before. "Yeah. How'd you-"

"Know?" She cut him off with a smile, fishing a little gold galleon out of her pocket - one that held the time and date of their next meeting. "I've been a member since the begining. Luna signed for me at the original meeting as I was in the hospital wing at the time and I've been unable to attend every one since as I am an appointed... distraction method."

Fred was amazed. He'd heard Harry had a few people who didn't attend all the meetings in order to keep the Inquisitorial squad off them or keep Filch distracted - in fact, he and his brother were employed for this very task at times - but he'd never have expected it of her.

"So, if you don't attend meetings, how do you-"

"How do I learn the spells?" she asked with a smirk.

Fred gave her an unamused look. "You sure do interrupt a lot. Kind of-"

"Annoying, yes, I've been told. Can't help it though." Sparrow shrugged, giving an apologetic look. "I learn the spells through Luna. After every meeting, she'll come up to my dorm and teach me and watch me practice till I get it right. And if that's not possible, I go see Hermione Granger or Katie Bell after classes."

Fred remained quiet for a moment, pensive, almost. It was obvious he was thinking everything she'd said over. "You know, you don't really seem like you belong in Ravenclaw; not all the way, anyway. It kind of seems like you're half and half."

Sparrow cocked her head to the side, her lips pulling up slightly. "Oh, yeah? Half and half of what exactly?"

"Half Ravenclaw, half Gryffindor," Fred said, pressing his lips together and looking at the ground to supress his own grin. By this point, he realized he'd forgotten most of his sadness from this morning's happenings and that even thinking about it now didn't hurt nearly as much as it had even half an hour before. "You have the wit and charm of a Ravenclaw and the bravery and daring of a Gryffindor, if your open defiance of Umbridge is anything to go by, and your occupation within the DA."

"_Witty and sharp but brave to the point of foolishness,_" she said said softly.

They didn't speak anymore, walking up the path in almost complete silence. Fred was contemplative while Sparrow was just quiet. She had nothing to add and he didn't know what to say, but he was starting to get antsy and restless within the silence. They remained this way up until they hit the edges of the grounds of Hogwarts at which he rapidly turned to the girl he'd been walking with, grabbing her by the shoulders and turning her to face him. Sparrow had noticed him getting restless, but she hadn't expected this and her eyes grew wide, darkened significantly by his hat. His own eyes were intense, boring into hers, like he was trying to read her thoughts.

"Why did you go down to Hogsmeade today?" he demanded. He released her shoulders, his hands sliding down the length of her arms to grip her at the elbows. This question had situated itself at the back of his mind when he'd seen how low her tolerance for the cold was and had been nagging at him since the silence had fallen over them. "What was worth the mile long walk in the snow?"

"You."

Fred was baffled. _"Me?" _he questioned, not daring to believe it. He'd never spoken to her, couldn't have recognized her by sight if he wanted to up until an hour ago. It didn't make any sense. "Why?"

Sparrow's eyes drifted shut and she took a deep breath in. "It was a long shot, but I decided I wanted to have a chance to talk to someone I'd admired from afar, help you if I could at all. I wanted you to take notice of me, the girl who only came across your path whenever Ravenclaw was on the Quidditch pitch." She released her breath, but her eyes remained shut, not daring to look him in the eye. "It was stupid. _Foolish_-"

"Brave."

Fred released her elbows and brought a hand under her chin, lifting it. She opened her eyes, peering up at him curiously. His own blazed with something she'd never seen before. And then he leaned in and kissed her. Sparrow melded into the kiss quickly, wrapping both her arms around his neck, finding his lips warm, soft and inviting with just a hint of chocolate and the burn of firewhiskey. Fred took a bit longer, reaching around her back to pull her closer with one arm, and the hand that had lifted her chin going to rest on the back of her neck. He was surprised to find her lips slightly dry but pleasantly warm. In his opinion, the kiss was over far too soon.

She pulled back first, blushing heavily. Fred gazed at her intensely. "I think it was incredibly brave and sweet - and yes, even a little foolish - to follow me all the way down to Hogsmeade just to talk to me and give me advice, not knowing how it would turn out." A smile tilted his lips upward, flashing his white teeth. "I think I like you, you foolish, brave little Ravenclaw, and _I'd_ like a chance to get to know _you_."

Sparrow smiled widely. "I think I'd like that." He offered her a hand, which she took and he walked her all the way to the Ravenclaw dorms. She kissed him goodnight and all but danced into her common room. It was like gravity had lost its hold on her and couldn't keep her down if it had tried.

Fred knew the feeling; gravity had lost it's hold on him too. He felt so light; happy. And without the weight on his shoulders and a free bird like Sparrow at his side...

Fighting gravity was easy.

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><p><strong>AN: Awwww. :)**

**I'm really rather happy with how this came out.**

**Now, for those of your who question the story behind this little baby, let me clear it up for you; Angelina and Fred had been dating since the Yule Ball in his sixth year, but she broke it off early in his seventh year. The morning before this happened, he'd found Angelina with George and she confessed to being in love with him rather than Fred. The pairing was originally going to be Sparrow/George, but there were several reasons that wouldn't work out, the main one being his later marriage to Angelina after Fred's death, which would cause several complications within this particular plot.**

**Also, since Angelina was originally with Fred, I didn't want it to seem like she turned to and married George as a replacement for his twin.**

**As for the time, it was shortly before Umbridge caught the DA in action and slightly after the game where both Weasley twins were banned from Quidditch for fighting on the pitch. Its been a long time since I read the book, Order of the Pheonix, so I'm mostly going off the movie's timeline.**

**Until we next meet.**

**Madly Yours,  
>Jassabella<strong>


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